Even in Minnesota, candidates aren’t eager to be seen with Obama

Are Democrats in Minnesota really so worried about Obama’s image that they’d rather not be seen with him in public? After all, he carried the state twice, yet they’re not exactly jumping at the opportunity to campaign with him, as CNN’s John King notes. It remains an open question whether Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who is up this year for re-election, will be seen much in public with the president today.

As journalist Jackie Kucinich puts it, Obama’s strategy is “first, do no harm” — and his appearance even here could prove harmful, just as George W. Bush’s was before his second midterm in 2006. Obama’s approval rating in Minnesota was 36 percent, with 54 percent disapproving, in April. In the absence of a billion-dollar marketing campaign like the 2012 election, and in the wake of Obamacare’s implementation, voters tend to be a lot less sympathetic to him.